2021-04-14 Minutes

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Alpine CC Board Minutes
6:00 pm Wednesday, April 14th, 2021 on Zoom

Present: Dorothy Brinckerhoff, Rachelle Payne, Melissa Meyer, Roger Irvin, Joyce Long, John Scott

1. Discuss & approve minutes of the previous meeting

Approved.

2. Review board email votes since last meeting

None.

3. Prioritize Agenda

4. Review and Accept Financial Reports

The board reviewed and accepted the financial reports for March.

5. Election of Officers

There were no nominations from the floor. John presented the nomination slate of Joyce Long for President, Dorothy Brinckerhoff for Treasurer, and John Scott for Secretary. The slate was re-elected for another year.

5. New Preschool Teacher

Joyce reported that the applicant pool was weak, but they interviewed 3 candidates. The committee had a promising interview on 4/14/21, with a candidate who is seeking a part-time position. We have made an offer to this candidate.

Joyce has also talked to Claudia (our assistant teacher from a few years ago). She is not available right now but indicated interest in teaching next fall.

6. Planning for Preschool Reopening

Joyce is getting strong expressions of interest from parents for a spring-summer term (probably with a full class of Bigs), with a full pipeline of 3 year olds for next fall. The Board discussed how to prioritize students for available places, related to the range of ages among kids who have passed their 4th birthday and the likelihood of going to kindergarten next fall. Joyce has compiled a spreadsheet of applicant students that she will share when it gets a little more complete and stable.

7. Updating the Preschool Parents Handbook

Melissa discussed items for the checklist of things to work on in the first 2-3 weeks after we have a confirmed hire, including communications with parents, organizing a meet-the-teacher event, writing up procedures, refreshing CPR training for the teacher and parents, etc.
When the hire is solid, Joyce will email the board to kick off this set of tasks. Melissa will start drafting some cleaning procedures.

8. Status update: Alpine Water Company

Rachelle reported on her walk-through of the water company with Jeanne-Anne. She took some meter readings, got a tour of the equipment, met Tanner, and received a briefing on the history.

John reported on his interview with Nicholas Ritch as a possible candidate to take over general administration of the water company.

9. New Business

Dorothy reported that Jeanne-Anne is considering writing a grant application for building a sign with reader-board out at the NW corner of the property along Bellfountain Road. Jeanne is aware of an arts-oriented grant program that she thinks might support such a project. The board authorized her to apply.

Roger suggested that the board might return to meeting in person soon. All board members are fully vaccinated or about to be. We are returning to the season when it would be comfortable to keep windows of the meeting room open for more airflow. No commitments were made.

10. Proposed agenda for May

Preparations for re-opening the preschool

11. Schedule

ACC Board 5/12

2021-03-17 Minutes

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Alpine CC Board Minutes
6:00 pm Wednesday, March 17th, 2021 on Zoom

Present: Dorothy Brinckerhoff, Rachelle Payne, Melissa Meyer, John Scott, Joyce Long, Roger Irvin

1. Discuss & approve minutes of the previous meeting

Approved.

2. Review board email votes since last meeting

None.

3. Prioritize Agenda

4. Review and Accept Financial Reports

The Board reviewed the financial reports for February. It was a very quiet month, with the lion’s share of activity from the resale shop. The resale shop had a great month, with over $800 in sales.

5. Recruiting for Preschool Teacher

Melissa reported that we currently have two applicants for the teacher position. She has emailed the resumes to the board. Neither has indicated whether they are applying for a permanent or short-term position. Melissa will communicate to the applicant and let them know that we will be scheduling interviews soon. Melissa needs any notes or questions that we have used in previous recruitment interviews. Joyce will check her files and forward any notes she can find.

We brainstormed with Melissa for other possible places to post our opening. Dorothy will share with Melissa the debit card info to use for paying to post our opening on Craigslist.

We have not had any responses yet from parents to our last communication that invited them to participate in the teacher selection process. Joyce has a need to contact the parents about other details (age of students, degree of interest in Spring-Summer term, etc.), and proposed to use that communication to ask parents for volunteers to participate in the interviews.

6. Planning for Preschool Reopening

Joyce and Melissa have received approval on their background checks for the emergency child care facility registration. That registration is ready to continue forward as soon as we hire a teacher.

We weighed plans for cleaning the facility, whether we want to hire a professional to do regular deep cleans, or rely on parent volunteers to clean thoroughly enough. Consensus was to move forward planning on using parent volunteers to do daily and weekly cleaning.

There is uncertainty about how many students we would have when we reopen. Joyce will be polling the parents to get commitments. Last autumn, we had an intended enrollment of 12 bigs and 3 littles. Our current understanding of OHA/ODE guidelines is that we would be restricted to 10 children at a time when we reopen.

7. Updating the Preschool Parents Handbook

Discussion (Joyce, Melissa). Review for notably outdated content.

Melissa reviewed the current version of the Parents Handbook. She believes that we need to wait until we have a teacher recruited before we can update many of the details. The fluidity of the pandemic landscape implies that it might be better to address this year’s differences in an addendum to the current handbook, rather than a complete revision. Such an addendum needs to include things like drop-offs will be at the door (not inside), and that no non-enrolled children are allowed to accompany parent volunteers into the classroom.

8. Upcoming changes at Alpine Water Company

John reported that the Alpine Water Company is heading toward major changes in the next few months, which will affect ACC. (AWC grew out of current ACC property, its physical plant is still hosted at ACC, it supplies ACC’s water, and John is ACC’s representative on the AWC board.) The individual who has kept the water company running over the last decade is retiring. The AWC board is working to define how the water company can continue to operate. The possibilities categorize down to (a) finding a new employee to take on the role of the retiring staffer, (b) finding a private company who will take on management of the system, or (c) getting Benton County to take on management of the system.

John led a discussion presenting the situation and brainstorming possible ways forward with the Board. Two ideas emerged. There is a new bookkeeping business in the Monroe area that might be solicited to take on management of the system. One of the ACC board members is interested in shadowing the AWC staffer in order to better understand the challenges.

Nicholas Rich bookkeeper. Rachelle would be interested in shadowing Jeanne to know more.

9. New Business

None.

10. Proposed agenda for April

Election of officers

Reopening the preschool

?

11. Schedule

ACC Board 4/14

2021-02-17 Minutes

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Alpine CC Board Minutes
6:00 pm Wednesday, February 17th, 2021 on Zoom

Present: Joyce Long, Dorothy Brinckerhoff, Roger Irvin, Rachelle Payne, Melissa Meyer, John Scott
Absent: Kristen Norris

1. Discuss & approve minutes of the previous meeting

Approved.

2. Review board email votes since last meeting

None.

3. Prioritize Agenda

4. Financial Report

Total donations from the year-end letter were $5,415, a great response in this year of unusual finances.
We had an unusually large propane bill, for a second fill around 1/21 (after a fill at the beginning of January). Jeanne Anne noticed that someone had left the thermostat up in the day(s) before the Cemetery board mtg (bldg. was warm). Joyce found the school days schedule still running on one day (but can’t remember exactly which day). Out leading theory is that someone left it up early in January. Joyce has reprogrammed the schedule so that all times are scheduled for 58 degrees. Dorothy will ask Montgomery Heating for a recommendation of a thermostat that can accept temporary overrides, and then revert back to its regular schedule. Joyce noticed that the display is advertising a low battery condition. John will check on it this weekend.

Board reviewed the financial reports for January and accepted them.

5. Preschool Report

Joyce reported that she talked to Kristen, our teacher & director. Kristen has decided she is not able to come back (resignation letter pending). Sarah, our assistant teacher, is unable to come back before autumn, and may not be available then. If Sarah does come back, she would not be comfortable leading the program. We will need to recruit a new teacher, and need to update the job description before we publicly recruit.

Dorothy has sent the most recent draft of job description to the board for notes about updates.

Melissa has been trying to connect with Lynnette at the LBCC early childhood program.

Melissa reported that she has also had an hour-long conversation with Cathy Voss, preschool teacher in West Linn and leader in PCPO. Voss’s preschool returned to in-person instruction in October 2020.

Facts about how they are proceeding (and believe their program to be in compliance):

  • They have a different parent volunteer each day (and one per day).
  • They use an app named Jovial for hands-free check-in.
  • Thay are running classes with six 4-yr-olds.
  • They had to expand from 3hr to 4hrs per day because of the overhead of hygiene.
  • They have 2 bins for each kid, one with art supplies, another for outdoor toys. Also a group of shared toys that get sanitized each day.
  • They leave windows open around 2 inches, with fans to keep air circulating.
  • They have left the choice about whether the children wear masks at preschool to the parents. Most kids have been wearing masks, but one can’t.
  • They have at-school rain gear (pants, boots) for outside play for each child. They are playing outside more of the time each day, and more regularly than they were before COVID.

Advice:

  • Communicate with parents to build trust and confidence in operating plan.
  • She recommends starting in spring with a small group, then expand next fall if we’ve built comfort and confidence.

Their regular parent volunteers have been judged eligible for vaccination as education volunteers, and their parents have all had the 1st dose.

Ms Voss is willing to do a Zoom consultation with us.

The board agreed that enough has changed about our situation that it’s appropriate time to send a next letter to the parents.

The board discussed what we need in place to file the application for “emergency child care program”, with particular attention to the space that prompts for the names of staffers. We could start filing by listing directors as the staff, then add the teacher after we recruit one. Dorothy and Melissa did on-the-fly research into requirements & procedure for filing. Dorothy says that Kristen did initiate an application a few months ago, and Dorothy has already received a response from the State about the application being incomplete.

The board discussed the possibility of recruiting for a limited-term position (spring-summer) with potential for then inviting the short-term teacher to apply for a full-year position for the fall.

Melissa will start the revision of the job description.

Dorothy will start the application, and start drafting the letter to the parents.

7. 2021 PCPO Early Childhood Conference (remote, March 4-18)

Melissa and Joyce led a discussion about the annual PCPO conference. The announced agenda shows that most session topics are aimed at practitioners. With no teacher for now, we have no one who would be appropriate to send.

8. New Business

Dorothy received an email from a representative of the Oregon Association of Water Utilities. They want to rent our Center to do in-person training sessions, starting in April. They say they may have max attendance that may exceed current OHA guidelines. We reviewed what we know about the current guidelines for in-person gatherings and the relationship the guidelines set related to Fire Marshal room capacity ratings. If we start up preschool for the spring, the days they are interested in might conflict with preschool. Dorothy agreed to respond to the OAWU with our concerns.

9. Proposed agenda for March

Preschool teacher recruiting

Preschool reopening

10. Schedule

Board meeting 3/17

2021-01-20 Minutes

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Alpine CC Board Minutes
6:00 pm Wednesday, January 20th, 2021 on Zoom

Present: Dorothy Brinckerhoff, Joyce Long, Roger Irvin, Rachelle Payne, Melissa Meyer, Kristen Norris, John Scott

1. Discuss & approve minutes of the previous meeting

Approved

2. Review board email votes since last meeting

None.

3. Prioritize Agenda

4. Financial Report

Board reviewed and accepted the financial reports for December.

We received an indirect msg from CoEnergy about an outstanding balance. Dorothy tried to check our account via their web portal, but will need to call them directly.

5. Preschool Report

Board discussed an email regarding offer of preschool re-opening help from one of the student’s grandparents. Kristen briefed the board on the current version of the public health requirements for re-opening. Kristen’s sense is that the requirements (such as to keep toys separate and keep kids separate) are not conducive to the kind of preschool experience we want to offer. The Board agrees that we are not ready to support operating the preschool in compliance with the current Oregon Health Authority guidelines.

Joyce accepted an action item to draft and publish an announcement of our updated plan not to re-open the preschool before June.

7. 2020 fundraising appeal

ACC received donation responses totaling $1360 during December, plus more since the first of January. ACC received special donations from past residents of Alpine who now live out of the area. John volunteered to write special thank you notes to those donors.

8. Making Recycling Area Security DVR accessible

John reported that he relocated the DVR from the Water Company building around New Years. It is now in the wood cabinet in the former cry room at the center. The cameras and wiring remain in place.

9. New Business

Cindy Alvarez has requested to rent ACC this summer for a bicycle tour event on Monday August 23rd., 11-2. They expect to only use the restrooms and stay outside. Board discussed and clarified how to apply the old cleaning deposit and new adjacent-use cleaning fee policies to this request.

10. Proposed agenda for February

(nothing specific)

11. Schedule

ACC Board 2/17 (rescheduled from normal 2/10 date)

2020-12-09 Minutes

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Alpine CC Board Minutes
6:00 pm Wednesday, December 9th, 2020 on Zoom

Present: Dorothy Brinckerhoff, Joyce Long, Roger Irvin, Melissa Meyer, John Scott, Rachel Payne

1. Discuss & approve minutes of the previous meeting

Approved as amended.

2. Review board email votes since last meeting

None.

3. Prioritize Agenda

4. Financial Report

The board reviewed and accepted the financial reports for November.

5. Preschool Report

Joyce reported for Kristen. If we try to open the preschool for a spring-summer session, we may need to arrange childcare for our teachers. Joyce will review the mailing list of parents that we notified about not opening for the autumn, because we need to send an update about not opening for a winter term.

7. 2020 fundraising appeal

Dorothy reported that we received another $1700 in donations during November, and have received another $300 in the first week and a half of December.

8. Making Recycling Area Security DVR accessible

Joyce and John described their work during the last month on the DVR. It appears that the unit we have will not work for the purposes we intended (to help identify people who leave trash at the center). After discussing it, the board agreed to pull the DVR and access point from the Alpine Water Company building.

9. Recruiting more new board members

Melissa has approached a couple of people she knows about serving or suggesting other candidates.

We distributed some action items to Joyce, Dorothy, and John related to adding Melissa to various published lists of directors and administrators for our digital assets.

10. New Business

None.

11. Proposed agenda for January

None.

12. Schedule

ACC Board 1/13

2020-11-11 Minutes

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Alpine CC Board Minutes
6:00 pm Wednesday, November 11th, 2020 on Zoom

Present: Dorothy Brinckerhoff, Roger Irvin, Rachelle Payne, Melissa Meyer, Joyce Long, John Scott
Absent: Kristen Norris

0. Welcome Melissa Meyer as a new board member

Introductions

1. Discuss & approve minutes of the previous meeting

Approved.

2. Review board email votes since last meeting

None.

3. Prioritize Agenda

4. Financial Report

Dorothy was not quite finished with the financial reports for October before the meeting. She will send them by email shortly. She reported that during October we had two facility rentals: a birthday party, and a family gathering. October’s payments included two months of sewer, two months shop rent, so abnormal clump of expenses that will even out in November. The Resale shop had OK sales in October. The Resale shop has a new volunteer, Sophia Parsons. Since we started taking credit cards, customers are spending more, so it makes up for the percentage we pay for processing card payments.

5. Preschool Report

Joyce reported that we won’t try to open in January. One contributing factor is the learning-from-home status of our teachers’ children. COVID numbers in Benton are currently low enough for “partial re-opening”, but case numbers are increasing, which is not hopeful for full reopening soon. Regardless of the ebb and flow of the stats, the behavior guidelines for how we would have to conduct preschool are not conducive to the kind of preschool we want to offer. Kristen, Sarah, Joyce, and Dorothy have agreed not to try to reopen in January, and we will re-evaluate in January whether we can open in the spring.

7. 2020 fundraising appeal

Dorothy reported: Joyce helped stuff envelopes. We sent 117 letters out, at a shoestring cost. So far we have $2695 in donations to date. One donor sent compliments on the letter. Responses are still coming in. We received several donations from first-time and not-recently donors.
Lessons learned were: Don’t buy envelopes at Office Depot. Get help folding and stuffing. This year we had a good letter text, with a concrete, relatable pitch! Getting it out early is a plus.

8. Facility rental agreement

Joyce has incorporated one or two tweaks (since the version emailed immediately after the October board mtg.), and added a sheet for recording attendees. Joyce will send around the updated copy to the board, and will leave copies of the attendee roster at the center. Form worked well with the two rentals during October.

We need to add a link to the OHA guidelines page on our site, where we mention that they must be followed. (Joyce will do this.)

9. Making Recycling Area Security DVR accessible

John & Joyce reported that they have made no progress this month.

10. Recruiting more new board members

Even though we welcomed Melissa Meyer as a new board member this month, we are still down one seat from our high-water mark. Next month, brainstorm possible people we can approach.

11. New Business

Dena and Gary Elliott are reported to be happy in their new residence.

12. Proposed agenda for December

Board member recruiting

13. Schedule

ACC Board 12/9

2020-10-14 Minutes

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Alpine CC Board Minutes
6:00 pm Wednesday, October 14th, 2020 on Zoom

Present: Joyce Long, Roger Irvin, Dorothy Brinckerhoff, Rachelle Payne, John Scott
Absent: Kristen Norris

1. Discuss & approve minutes of the previous meeting

Approved as corrected.

2. Review board email votes since last meeting

None.

3. Prioritize Agenda

4. Financial Report

Board reviewed the financial reports for September. Accepted.

5. Preschool Report

Dorothy, Joyce, & Kristen have exchanged emails about a letter one of them received from the Oregon Early Learning Division asking them to file an attestation that our application (for a special status related to reopening the preschool during the pandemic) is correct, but we haven’t submitted that application. We will need that application if we open the preschool in January. Dorothy, Joyce, & Kristen are continuing to follow up.

6. Routine and post-event cleaning criteria & methods for the Center

Joyce reported that she had her cleaner acquaintance tour the Center to review the scope of the potential job. Her contact, Barry, estimated a full cleaning of the entire building at $90 per event, or a targeted touch up at $45. We have made no commitment yet, and no periodic cleaning schedule has begun. Board agreed to use $100 on our price schedule as the cleaning fee when two events need to occur at the Center within 72 hours of each other.

7. 2020 Fundraising Appeal

Dorothy received feedback from Joyce and John on the letter draft, and has incorporated their ideas into the working draft. She will send the edited draft out to the board for one more last-chance review cycle. Dorothy will print the letters. Dorothy needs help updating the mailing list to include preschool parents.

Joyce will get the preschool parents mailing list from Kristen, as well as the contact list from the 2019 Scamper. When Dorothy consolidates the lists, she will circulate the spreadsheet for last-chance catches. Dorothy plans to get the letters and labels generated by 10/18. Joyce will fold, stuff, and mail the letters.

We also want to post a version of the letter to the web site and Facebook.

8. Facility rental agreement

Joyce sent a draft of the facility rental agreement to the board for review on 10/12, and has received edit suggestions from John. She will incorporate those suggestions into the document.

We have a rental scheduled for this weekend. The renter has agreed in principal to the new pandemic-related requirements. Dorothy has already collected the $100 deposit, and will open the building for them.

9. Making Recycling Area Security DVR accessible

John reported that he reconfigured the network connection on the DVR so that we can now connect to it from outside the water company building. There are still several steps before we can use it the way we intend to identify violators. John will continue work to get it set up.

10. Recruiting new board members

Dorothy reported that Melissa Meyer emailed, expressing interest in serving on the board. The Board greeted this news with joy. Dorothy will invite her to join us in our next meeting.

11. New Business

The Board discussed how best to recognize Dena’s service and thank her. Rachelle will order a flower arrangement to be delivered with a note thanking Dena for her years of service to ACC, SBCE, and the community.

Orion Parsons has been doing some work for the Water Company and ACC. Ethan Bennet has paid his yard maintenance service to mow a couple times this year. Dorothy has authorized that service to do a round of weed suppression in the Center parking lot.

12. Proposed agenda for November

Follow-up & Lessons learned from Sponsorship Appeal

13. Schedule

ACC Board 11/11

2020-09-16 Minutes

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Alpine CC Board Minutes
6:00 pm Wednesday, September 16th, 2020 on Zoom

Present: Joyce Long, Dorothy Brinckerhoff, Roger Irvin, John Scott, Rachelle Payne
Absent: Dena Elliott, Kristen Norris

1. Discuss & approve minutes of the previous meeting

Approved

2. Review board email votes since last meeting

None.

3. Prioritize Agenda

4. Financial Report

The board reviewed the financial reports for August.

Dorothy reminded us that the apparently duplicate asset account on the balance sheet related to building improvement is left-over from a balancing entry directed by our accountant several years ago. She will include this on a list of questions to address to our accountant in the next couple months as he reviews our books for the 2019-2020 fiscal year.

The board accepted the financial reports for August.

5. Preschool Report

Because of our decision not to start the preschool year until January, Kristen had no report for the board related to the preschool.

6. Routine and post-event cleaning criteria & methods for the Center

Joyce reported that she has not yet obtained a cleaning pricing estimate from her contact who is doing COVID cleaning professionally.

Dorothy reported that we have received a request to rent the center.

We checked the OHA guidelines for how long the COVID germs are believed to remain infectious on various surfaces, and confirmed that the current guidance is the 3 days exposure is considered effective to render all surfaces non-infectious.

Roger proposed an interim policy that we can accept rental requests under the pre-COVID terms (without special cleaning requirements) as long as no other event is already scheduled in the center in the 3 days before or after (with max attendance within the guidelines that currently apply under Oregon and Benton county rules). We discussed potential complications, particularly with recurring reservations. We will not accept one-time reservations less than 2 weeks before the reservation date (to allow time for notifying potential others with pre-existing reservations near the intended date). Folks with recurring reservations must accept that any reservation more than 2 weeks away may result in them facing a choice of rescheduling, or doing a special deep cleaning after their event and before another party that wants to use the center within 3 days following their recurring event.

The board accepted consensus that this interim policy is as good as we can do with the current state of knowledge. Joyce will incorporate this into the facility rental agreement form she is drafting.

7. Budget planning for 2020-21

Joyce reported that she has not collected a list of amounts and activities to include in the fundraising letter that Rachelle drafted, focused on sponsorship opportunities. The letter needs some re-writes because of the way the pandemic and preschool situation has changed since early summer. Dorothy will make an editing pass and email her revised draft to the board.

We noted that it is the time of year when we intend to start preparing to send out a year-end appeal letter.

8. Facility rental agreement

Joyce reported that she has not yet completed her intended draft of this document. Joyce will send a draft to the board by 9/21.

9. Network access to the video recorder of the recycling depot

Joyce and John reported that they have not yet configured the video recorder of the recycle center for practical access.
Action Item (Joyce & John): Set up DVR by 10/14/20.

10. New Business

Dorothy confirmed that she has cancelled the fire alarm monitoring.

The board delegated Roger to contact Dena about her ability to continue her generous service on the board.

11. Proposed agenda for October

Draft fundraising appeal letter

Facility rental agreement

12 Schedule

ACC Board 10/14

2020-08-12 Minutes

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Alpine CC Board Agenda
6:00 pm Wednesday, August 12th, 2020 on Zoom

Present: Joyce Long, Roger Irvin, Rachelle Payne, John Scott, Kristen Norris
Absent: Dena Elliott, Dorothy Brinckerhoff

1. Discuss & approve minutes of the previous meeting

Approved.

2. Review board email votes since last meeting

3. Prioritize Agenda

4. Financial Report

The board reviewed the financial reports for July. Roger noticed that there are two separate asset lines on the Balance Sheet that appear to refer to the same thing: “Future Remodel Work” and “Building & Site Improvement”. These separate accounts have been on the balance sheet for a long time. Next month Dorothy can review that history.
Reports accepted.

5. Preschool Report

Kristen reported that the Early Learning Division has issued a directive that we are to delay starting preschool until at least January 2021. Kristen has prepared a letter to the parents relating this news. Joyce & Dorothy have reviewed and approved the letter text.

Many parents have not sent registration checks. For the ones who have, we will refund the funds to the parents. Kristen will send the letters to the parents and CC the board members.

6. Routine and post-event cleaning criteria & methods for the Center

Joyce has a candidate who is interested in working for ACC to do cleaning. This person has been doing disinfective cleaning for a church, and is familiar with the CDC guidelines. Board asks Joyce to get pricing from him, that we can pass through any time when we get into discussions about renting the facility.

7. Budget planning for 2020-21

The change in plans for the preschool year will change the profile of our income deficit for the fiscal year from the projections John distributed this month. There will still be a shortfall, but the magnitude will differ. Board will continue moving forward with the sponsorship appeal that Rachelle drafted this month, and will also work on finding other ideas.

Roger moved that we drop our fire monitoring contract, at least for the remainder of 2020. John seconded. Approved.

8. Facility rental agreement

The board tabled Joyce’s presentation of draft agreement form and the attendant discussion.

9. New Business

Jeanne Anne would like ACC to move the video monitoring hardware out of the Water Company building, unless we are actively using it to monitor the recycling area. John will work with Joyce to get it accessible through our network.

10. Proposed agenda for September

Review of the two asset accounts relating to building improvement

Fund raising

11. Schedule

ACC Board 9/9

2020-07-08 Minutes

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Alpine CC Board Minutes
6:00 pm Wednesday, July 8th, 2020 on Zoom

Present: Rachelle Payne, Joyce Long, Kristen Norris, Roger, Dorothy, John
Absent: Dena Elliott

1. Discuss & approve minutes of the previous meeting

Approved.

2. Review board email votes since last meeting

None.

3. Prioritize Agenda

4. Financial Report

The board reviewed and accepted the financial reports for June.

5. Preschool Report

Kristen reported on the most recent information she is getting from PCPO about reopening preschool in this year’s pandemic circumstances. We are a “recorded” program, so under the current rules:

  • we would need to apply for an “emergency permit” to reopen in September,
  • we will be limited to 10 children (Only 4 littles from last year will return as bigs. 9 are currently registered for bigs, 7 for littles.),
  • parent volunteers must be masked,
  • parents must stagger drop-offs and can’t come into the building during drop-off,
  • we must take the children’s temperatures at drop-off.

We could resign from our recorded status, and thus be relieved from some requirements. Many board members are reluctant to consider this.

Having the preschool in a building that is also used for other purposes, is likely to impose other restrictions related to sanitation regimens between other events and preschool sessions. All is still uncertain even about whether public schools will be opened in September.

The CDC guidelines call for allowing more space between children, which would require us to hold preschool in the great hall instead of the small rooms.

Because we do host the preschool, we have a burden of trustworthiness to prove to the parents. We may need to prioritize the preschool over non-preschool uses of the Center.

Joyce, Dorothy, Kristen, Sarah, and Rachelle will meet separately as a sub-committee to work on our plans for this.

Because of the pandemic, we can’t do an open house the way we have in earlier years. Don’t need to do it for returning families. Probably need to schedule non-overlapping time slots for new parents to come see the facility and discuss the program.

6. Routine and post-event cleaning criteria & methods for the Center

The board discussed how there can be a meaningful distinction drawn between other events at the Center on week nights versus events on weekend times. We may need to prioritize the preschool over non-preschool uses of the Center.

Do “masks required” rules apply to the Center? You could make an argument that the center is not open to the public. Board confirms our intent to comply with the Governor’s masking rules for public indoor facilities.

We will need to establish rules for post-event cleaning that meet or exceed the cleaning standards for the preschool. We will probably settle on a two-tier rule that we will trust some regular users to clean the center after their meetings, while requiring others to pay for professional cleaning. Table this discussion to next month.

7. Budget planning for 2020-21

John led a discussion about alternate operations fundraising approaches for the pandemic age. Dorothy says that Ford Family Foundation and Oregon Community Foundation are sending signals that they are open to grant requests for operations expenses hit by the pandemic. There are rumors that the State may have special funds to support early childhood learning. Joyce will work her contacts related to State funds. John will mine the previous years’ budgets and P&L actuals to forecast expenses for the coming year and identify the lost income from fundraisers cancelled.

Rachelle proposed an early autumn fundraising appeal for sponsorship donations, with amounts tied to various activities and opportunities.

8. Facility rental agreement

Joyce’s work on a draft agreement form tabled to next month.

9. New Business

Today Jeanne Anne sent a msg through the list serve appealing for a volunteer to mow and weedwhack at the Center.

10. Proposed agenda for August

Planning for preschool 2020-21

11. Schedule

ACC Board 8/12, Scheduled first day of school for Monroe District 9/9, ACC Board 9/9